Advances a new perspective in world history, arguing that institutions and culture - and not just the global economy - serve as important elements of international order. Focusing on colonial legal politics and the interrelation of local and indigenous cultural contests and institutional change, the book uses case studies to trace a shift in plural legal orders - from the multicentric law of early empires to the state-centered law of the colonial and postcolonial world. In the early modern world, the special legal status of cultural and religious others itself became an element of continuity across culturally diverse empires. In the nineteenth century, the state's assertion of a singular legal authority responded to repetitive legal conflicts - not simply to the imposition of Western models of governance. Indigenous subjects across time and in all settings were active in making, changing, and interpreting the law - and, by extension, in shaping the international order.
By:
Lauren Benton (New York University) Series edited by:
Michael Adas, Edmund Burke, III, Philip D. Curtin Imprint: Cambridge University Press Country of Publication: United Kingdom Dimensions:
Height: 228mm,
Width: 153mm,
Spine: 21mm
Weight: 415g ISBN:9780521009263 ISBN 10: 052100926X Series:Studies in Comparative World History Pages: 300 Publication Date:07 May 2002 Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format:Paperback Publisher's Status: Active
Reviews for Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900
'… this book can be warmly recommended for its topicality, as well as its provocative thesis and rich detail.' The Round Table
Winner of James Willard Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association 2003
Winner of James Willard Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association 2003.
Winner of World History Association Book Prize 2003
Winner of World History Association Book Prize 2003.